Advising someone about PhD program

[Ruralguy]

The stats are probably similar in my field, but many people don't seek tenure track positions. They either wish to work part time (spouse is primary earner) or would rather work in a similar atmosphere, but with better defined work hours and expectations.

[Kron3007]

To me, this is a key detail that the OP's friend should consider.  If there are opportunities outside of academia as a plan B and they are open to that, it might be a fine idea to do the PhD.  If it is a field where it is essentially academia or bust, that seems like a very different choice. 

[Hibush]

eing said you need a strong PhD with good publications to get a good PostDoc to get a good job. You need a good job with a good start-up to get the data to get the grants to move. I...It costs a lot of money for wetlab science, so start-ups are expensive for the universities, and competition is fierce. I would tell anyone to position themselves to gain skills needed for industry, if they were considering a PhD.

How much money do you think it takes in biomedicine to run a lab that is productive enough to get more or less continuous grant funding? The critical mass to keep a research program going for a whole career?

How much institutional support in grants managers, IP managers, IT managers, HR managers, EH&S staff, research-facilities maintenance staff and multi-user instrumentation acquisition and support staff does it take to support one of those programs?

[fizzycist]

It

Trying to buck trend is really not a good idea. With a program this specific, going in to a career of a different type is no more likely than going into a career in a substantiallly different field. I would characterize Fizzicists numbers above as overly optimistic.

Yeah messed up when I composed that post. Should have said chances are a few percent for a PhD graduate at 100th ranked school to get any R1 job and at least an order of magnitude lower if targeting only a subset of just a few schools in a particular city. (And that the numbers are only slightly better at a higher ranked school)

But I stand by the claim that many phd graduates of 'hard' science--even at mediocre R1 schools--have deeply enriching learning experie ces and potential for gainful employment in a variety of settings. I know this is an unpopular take these days!

[Charlotte]

Yeah messed up when I composed that post. Should have said chances are a few percent for a PhD graduate at 100th ranked school to get any R1 job and at least an order of magnitude lower if targeting only a subset of just a few schools in a particular city. (And that the numbers are only slightly better at a higher ranked school)

But I stand by the claim that many phd graduates of 'hard' science--even at mediocre R1 schools--have deeply enriching learning experie ces and potential for gainful employment in a variety of settings. I know this is an unpopular take these days!

Yes, I don't think I was clear enough in my posts that they know they have no chance to go to an R1 school. What they want is to go to a school that has graduate programs and support for research.

They are seriously considering the option of not going into academia as well. Their degree would be transferable for that and would likely be more money too. Their first choice is professor though. They previously said they didn't want to be a professor, but after a couple years teaching as adjunct they learned they really liked teaching and working at a university.

Even if they end up working outside academia, they do want to know specifically what their options are which is why they are thinking so carefully about this.

[Caracal]

Do we have any independent researchers here? I'd love to hear the perspective of someone who doesn't necessarily have support from their university to do research but still manages to research.

That is the main priority for them. They enjoy teaching too though. I believe their hope is to end up at a location with at least masters level programs so they will know that the university will provide support for research.

I cannot advise your colleague on the grad program, but I don't know that being at a lower-ranked school will necessarily limit research, depending on field. In my humanities field, I've met researchers at R1s who consider themselves limited by resources and faculty at well-situated but less prestigious schools who can get to major libraries with ease. My most recent school with abysmal library facilities (and, it should be noted, a MA program) had borrowing agreements with every other university library in the state pre-COVID; my community college before that had borrowing agreements with three R1s in the area (and, it should be noted, better research support than my most recent school). I've had the benefit of living in two regions with public libraries that had interlibrary loan agreements with nearby universities and one with a major public research library that anyone could access. Though I am limited in my experience of being well-supported by my home institution, the proximity of friendly libraries can make a huge difference for scholars who don't need labs.

AR.

I think that's one of the big differences between humanities and sciences. The big constraint in the humanities is time. It can be hard to get a lot done teaching a 4/4. You will get more resources at an R1 or well funded SLAC. Better libraries and more money for research help. However, it is possible to overcome all those obstacles. You can get fellowships and grants allowing you to spend time focusing on research. With some good use of ILL and some of the other strategies Avidreader mentioned people can manage. And even if you can't get fellowships, some people can just exploit their own labor and work all the time to get research done. Not really something that seems appealing to me, but it is very possible.

My impression is that the reason hard sciences are different is because the resources required are greater and you can't do much individually. I suppose those two things are closely related. It is possible to publish a respected and important  book in a History field while working at Southwestern Middle of Nowhere State. It is probably impossible to do cutting edge Astro Physics there. It might be a long shot, but again, it isn't impossible for a professor teaching at SWMNS to parlay that respected book into a job at an R1 school. I'm gathering that this just doesn't happen in the sciences because it mostly isn't possible to do the kind of things that will get you hired somewhere like that while teaching at somewhere without those resources.

[Ruralguy]

I think most of us are talking about *going to grad school at a lower ranked R1*, not the actual job you might get later at very much not an R1. That is, at a  lower ranked R1 for grad school, so long as there is some sort of funding, you can probably do reasonable research as a student, maybe even very good or excellent research.

Later on, say, if said grad student gets a job with a 3-3 or 4-4 load or what have you, total output will certainly be lower, and probably funding will be limited. That person will almost certainly have to keep up collaborations for a while to keep up top notch scholarship, and after that, can try for independent grants (hard), do more table-top scholarship (not too hard if you know how to do it) , or write about things you can write about without grants (doable, but its not the road to more grants!).  That person will almost never be able to just write his/her way out, and maybe not be able to even "grant" his/her way out.

[kaysixteen]

Aren't most profs working in ft positions in fields like history at places like Southwest Middle of Nowhere St. actually PhD grads of top-flight PhD programs, given the enormous surfeit of PhDs vs tt positions?

[Ruralguy]

Yes, sort of, though I wouldn't say all professors as such places are from top flight programs. A higher % of historians and English profs
are from prestigious R1 programs, most likely, as compared to the hard sciences, but its definitely not all or even most of them, at such schools, at least in my experience.

[Wahoo Redux]

Aren't most profs working in ft positions in fields like history at places like Southwest Middle of Nowhere St. actually PhD grads of top-flight PhD programs, given the enormous surfeit of PhDs vs tt positions?

My experience has been that these schools are populated by people from high in the "second" tier of R1 schools, although I think the degree prestige is trending upward.

[jerseyjay]

I think that's one of the big differences between humanities and sciences. The big constraint in the humanities is time. It can be hard to get a lot done teaching a 4/4. You will get more resources at an R1 or well funded SLAC. Better libraries and more money for research help. However, it is possible to overcome all those obstacles. You can get fellowships and grants allowing you to spend time focusing on research. With some good use of ILL and some of the other strategies Avidreader mentioned people can manage. And even if you can't get fellowships, some people can just exploit their own labor and work all the time to get research done. Not really something that seems appealing to me, but it is very possible.

My impression is that the reason hard sciences are different is because the resources required are greater and you can't do much individually. I suppose those two things are closely related. It is possible to publish a respected and important  book in a History field while working at Southwestern Middle of Nowhere State. It is probably impossible to do cutting edge Astro Physics there. It might be a long shot, but again, it isn't impossible for a professor teaching at SWMNS to parlay that respected book into a job at an R1 school. I'm gathering that this just doesn't happen in the sciences because it mostly isn't possible to do the kind of things that will get you hired somewhere like that while teaching at somewhere without those resources.

Yes, I teach history at an open admissions public university with a 4:4 load and a poor library (although the ILL department has been helpful). But I have three major research libraries within an hour's travel by public transportation, and three others within two hours' travel by car, and within that radius there are at least six other decent mid-size universities. If my job were in a less dense academic area, I would have much more problems with research.

As it is, I am able to keep up a modest research program. Time is, in fact the main issue.

Also, I should note, I have tailored my research to fit the archives I have around me. While my teaching has broadened out (to include World History, Latin American, and European history), my research has narrowed (at least in region) to mainly Northeastern United States history, because that is what I have around me.  There are times that I combine vacation with research trips, but there are times that I want to be on vacation on my vacation, not working on an article or a book.

If I were a specialist in Asian or European or African history, I would find it much harder to find primary sources. A colleague specializes in North African francophone literature and has a very hard time getting sources, despite all the libraries listed above. But colleagues in the hard sciences at my school have a very hard time doing research because they require more than books, but equipped labs, which are harder to come by.

At my school, most of the newish hires have degrees from R1s. Many of these schools are nearby, and people obviously preferred a non-research position in big metropolitan area than a more research oriented job in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps a non-research university in an isolated rural area would be weary of hiring a PhD from big-name metropolitan R1, but in history, I wouldn't advise anybody to get a PhD at a lesser school (lesser being somewhat subjective) if their goal was to get a faculty position, much less at a research-oriented school. There are plenty of R1 PhDs who cannot get good academic jobs, even with some publications. (I suppose I might not advise anybody to get a PhD in history from most universities if their goal is a faculty position, but that's another subject.)

[apl68]

Perhaps a non-research university in an isolated rural area would be weary of hiring a PhD from big-name metropolitan R1, but in history, I wouldn't advise anybody to get a PhD at a lesser school (lesser being somewhat subjective) if their goal was to get a faculty position, much less at a research-oriented school. There are plenty of R1 PhDs who cannot get good academic jobs, even with some publications. (I suppose I might not advise anybody to get a PhD in history from most universities if their goal is a faculty position, but that's another subject.)

And not every R1 department carries much cachet in every field.  The PhD history department I went to was at a very recognized R1 school, but that particular department wasn't considered all that stellar.  My grad school colleagues who finished their PhDs still seldom got full faculty jobs.  If your goal is a university faculty position in history, I suspect there are only a handful of PhD programs anywhere in the country that would be remotely a good bet. 

[Caracal]

Perhaps a non-research university in an isolated rural area would be weary of hiring a PhD from big-name metropolitan R1, but in history, I wouldn't advise anybody to get a PhD at a lesser school (lesser being somewhat subjective) if their goal was to get a faculty position, much less at a research-oriented school. There are plenty of R1 PhDs who cannot get good academic jobs, even with some publications. (I suppose I might not advise anybody to get a PhD in history from most universities if their goal is a faculty position, but that's another subject.)

And not every R1 department carries much cachet in every field.  The PhD history department I went to was at a very recognized R1 school, but that particular department wasn't considered all that stellar.  My grad school colleagues who finished their PhDs still seldom got full faculty jobs.  If your goal is a university faculty position in history, I suspect there are only a handful of PhD programs anywhere in the country that would be remotely a good bet.

Yes, I would agree with that. Those programs also have a lot of overlap with places that give guaranteed funding to all admitted students for at least four years. If you are going to do something where the risk/reward ratio is not in your favor (and that is definitely true for most history fields) you really want to make sure you tilt the odds as much in your favor as you can from the outset, and that you limit the cost if it doesn't work out. Only consider the highest ranked schools and don't incur a lot of debt getting a PHD.

[Sun_Worshiper]

I've advised many people (mostly students) about PhD programs. They often have no idea how the dynamics work: Sometimes they think that they'll easily get accepted to Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford, and sometimes they assume that a PhD from the directional university near where their boy/girlfriends lives will be their ticket to a job at Princeton. I try to explain the reality to them - which is that most people struggle to get a tt and those that do land at lower tier schools than where they earn their degree. Sometimes they listen and sometimes not.

[Wahoo Redux]

I've advised many people (mostly students) about PhD programs. They often have no idea how the dynamics work: Sometimes they think that they'll easily get accepted to Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford, and sometimes they assume that a PhD from the directional university near where their boy/girlfriends lives will be their ticket to a job at Princeton. I try to explain the reality to them - which is that most people struggle to get a tt and those that do land at lower tier schools than where they earn their degree. Sometimes they listen and sometimes not.

I wonder if the peculiarity and complexity of the academic job market skews people's perceptions of their job prospects.  It is hard to square or explain academic hiring with most people's experiences on the non-academic job hunt. 

I remember looking at the numbers of higher-ed institutions in the country (around 3,500 total at this point----before the impending crash) and thinking, "Not bad.  One of them is gonna wanna hire me."  Eventually a couple did, but certainly was no like job hunting when I was pitching my BA around corporate America.